The present invention relates generally to a system and method for enabling a hierarchal collaboration of devices, e.g., computer systems, across a communication channel.
Many organizations have adopted the Internet and Internet technologies as channels for both primary internal and external communications and the distribution of products. These new channels are driving the development of systems to handle the rapid flow of data, information and products between global partners. New products are introduced at an ever-increasing rate and new multi-vendor partnerships are being created for their packaging, delivery and support.
As complex new products are developed and distributed using Internet-based supply chains, customers expect that the right answer is xe2x80x9cjust one click awayxe2x80x9d and hit their web browsers first, looking for the quick fix of a friendly self-help system. Typically, their experience is quite different as out of date FAQs and long delay E-mail systems force them to use their telephones. Due to the complexity of the product, the first vendor they call probably does not have an answer to their problem, and this requires them to make additional calls to further search for a vendor who has a resolution.
U.S. Patents directed to related apparatus include:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,371,852 describes to method and apparatus for enabling a cluster of computers to appear as a single computer to host computers outside the cluster;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,687,372 describes a link manager process that selects application processes to execute applications based on computational load distribution criteria, so as to distribute computation load as evenly as possible over the server computers to maximize the throughput and responsiveness of the system;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,708,780 describes the use of a secondary server which determines whether a client has an authorization or a valid account and subsequently provides the user a session identification which allows the user access to the requested file;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,734,828 describes an on-line/information service system constituted with a caller management server and a number of on-line/information servers;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,774,660 describes the use of a load balancer which receives all requests from clients and subsequently passes the requests to a second node having the requested resource; and
U.S. Pat. No. 5,774,668 describes the use of Gateway microcomputers which receive a request over a WAN and, after applying a load balancing method accordingly to a periodically-updated service map, redirect the request over a LAN to an application server.
The present invention relates to a system and method for enabling a hierarchal collaboration of devices across a common communication channel, e.g., the Internet. Embodiments of the present invention define a plurality of devices, e.g., computer systems operating as servers. Each device is capable of receiving one or more inquiries from at least one user and locally providing data in response to such inquiries. However, when the locally available data is not responsive to the user""s inquiry, the inquiry is redirected to another device that has such data, and the response is received therefrom.
In accordance with a significant feature of a preferred embodiment, a common resource exchange stores status data corresponding to each device. This status data, e.g., data corresponding to the ability and availability of each device to provide a response, is used to determine where (to which device) the inquiry is redirected.
In a preferred embodiment, a system for enabling a plurality of devices to collaborate across a communication channel comprises (1) a common resource exchange for storing status data corresponding to each device and providing the status data to each device, and (2) two or more devices each comprising (A) at least one uniquely-identified message center processor capable of receiving a data request from at least one user and providing a response to the data request to the user; and (B) a director processor associated with the message center processor capable of redirecting the data request from the message center processor to another message center processor according to the status data provided from the resource exchange. Additionally, the message center processors are coupled to each other using a common communication channel.
In a further aspect of a preferred embodiment, each of the director processors is capable of receiving the redirected data requests from another director processor and directing the data requests to an associated message center processor.
In still a further aspect of a preferred embodiment, the Internet is used as the common communication channel.